by Mindy Klasky
“I’m not here on business,” Drew said.
Jessica’s belly swooped to her toes as he moved around the table. When he stood in front of her, she could see a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “You didn’t return my call,” he said.
Her cheeks burned, and she wanted to look away. But he deserved more than that. He’d come all the way to New York, he’d dressed like a Wall Street banker, he’d muscled his way into this room to talk to her. She owed him some response.
But Chip wasn’t hanging her out to dry. Her boss said, “Mr. Marshall, if you’re dissatisfied with my team’s responsiveness, we can address—”
“I’m not dissatisfied with anything about your team,” Drew said, cutting him off. No one ever cut off Chip Patterson. But Drew had no way of knowing that. Or Drew didn’t care.
He reached out and took the marker from her yielding fingers, setting it on the metal tray that she still clutched with her left hand like it was the only thing that kept her on her feet. He handed her the flowers, and she had to give up her metal security blanket then. She folded her hands around the stems, and Drew added his palms on top of hers, pouring in a solid foundation of strength and certainty that stopped the wobbling in her knees.
“I was wrong,” he said, and she knew everyone in the room could hear him, but it didn’t matter because he was only speaking to her. “I was wrong to violate your privacy. I was wrong to delete the file. I was wrong not to trust you. Everything you did in Florida, you did to help me. Your statistics and your strategies and your Indexes, all of it. You never took a wrong step, and I should have had some faith.”
His words melted something inside her, healing bruises she hadn’t known she had. They spread like a balm over raw aches that had become so familiar she’d forgotten she was injured.
“I was wrong, too,” she said. “I never should have told Parker about Susan. I had no right.”
“You were working my case—”
No. It was important he understand. He had to know the truth, even though it cut her up inside to say it. She took her hands from his and set the flowers on the edge of the conference table. Only then could she force herself to say, “I said it was about work—that’s what I told myself. But I wanted to hurt you too. I wanted you to feel as horrible as I felt.” She blinked, and found to her horror that tears were rolling down her cheeks.
He reached out with his free hand and wiped them away. “Don’t cry,” he said.
And that was the worst thing he could have said. The dam broke. All the frustration of five weeks in the city, all the tension of work, work, endless days of work, all the uncertainty of whether Chip would take her back, of whether she would ever make partner, if she would have a job at all if she didn’t live up to the impossible, unbearable standards. Everything shattered, came crashing down around her, and she sobbed like a little girl, like a bereft woman.
His arms closed around her. His body sheltered her, feeding her warmth, lending her balance. His hands stroked her back, soothing even through the confining fabric of her jacket. His lips brushed her temple, soft, sweet, offering a silent promise.
Finally, she pulled away enough to laugh unsteadily. She pressed her fingers beneath her eyes and focused on his shoes, because the alternative was to accept that her breakdown was being witnessed by a dozen people, a dozen competitors who were probably churning with joy at watching her fall. “I’m an idiot,” she said.
“Never,” was Drew’s immediate response.
And only then, when he brushed her hair behind her ear, when he cupped her chin in his palm did she realize what she should have seen the second he walked into the room. “Your hand!”
“Good as new,” he said, easing back just enough to flex his fingers. “Or almost. The cast came off yesterday.”
Good as new. But nothing was good. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t admit her failure. Despite his Sympathy Index, his Competence Index, his Charisma Index, all the metrics she’d bolstered and manipulated for weeks, all the work she’d poured in, that her colleagues had done since she’d fled Florida—no model guaranteed he’d make the team. There’d been too many negatives, too many scandals. The only saving grace had been that Drew was parked on the disabled list—the team could ignore him while the social media firestorm burned itself out.
“So now the team has to make a decision?”
“They will, after I rehab. They’re actually under a lot of pressure to take me back. Some of that’s due to what you guys are doing here. But a lot of it is because the union’s involved—and pushing hard. There’s no paper trail beyond my sending money to Bobby. I didn’t know anything about his gambling; there’s no connection between me and any bets, anywhere. Not even Ross Parker has been able to dig up a shred of evidence that I knew what was going on.”
And if Parker couldn’t find it, then it wasn’t there to be found. He didn’t say that. They both knew it.
But she had to say, “Bobby isn’t your only problem.” He wasn’t. She was a problem, too—maybe not as bad as gambling, maybe not as dark a blot on his record. But from the team’s perspective, Drew’s fiancée had lost faith in him; she’d walked away. And that had to make the Rockets question whether Drew Marshall was the man they wanted at shortstop.
He waved vaguely at the other people in the room, at the Image Masters associates who were gaping like they were watching a summer blockbuster movie. “They’ll work their magic. My Sympathy Index is high—you made sure of that by getting Susan’s story out there. I’ll be rebuilding my Competence Index as soon as I get to extended spring training in Florida; everyone will see that I can still hit, and it’ll only take me a couple of weeks to get back to where I was with fielding. That leaves my Charisma Index.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “And you’ve become such an expert on all this?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to study up. And the one thing that would blow my Charisma Index out of the water is if my fiancée came back to Florida with me. If she stayed down there while I rehabbed. If she stood by me, despite the injury, despite Bobby and Susan, despite everything.” His fingers twined with hers. “I’ll be staying at the beach house, Jessica. Come with me.”
She caught her breath. She could have a view of the ocean instead of asphalt and concrete and stifling high-rise buildings. She could listen to waves instead of honking taxis and cursing crowds. She could smell brine instead of diesel and garbage. All she had to do was say yes.
“Don’t do it,” Chip said, and she collapsed back to the conference room. She had to turn around then, had to face the shocked eyes of everyone who sat at the polished table.
They had no idea what to make of her. Some of them pitied her; she’d learned to read that emotion in the months following Kevin’s death. They thought she was injured, sick, damaged. Some of them were eager for her to go, eager to step up to the whiteboard themselves, to draw the lines connecting the dots of Donald Bender’s campaign, of a dozen other projects she’d claimed as hers in the past month. One or two were yearning—they wanted to escape as well, to their own dreams, to their own lives outside the Image Masters conference room.
But Chip was the one who mattered. Chip was the one who had recognized her ability from the start, who had nurtured her, challenged her, who had rebuilt her backbone after Kevin’s death tore it away.
“Don’t go, Jessica,” Chip said. “If you follow him to Florida, you won’t come back to New York again. You’re good at this, the best I’ve ever seen. Image Masters needs you. I need you.”
Those were the words of recognition she’d craved. That was the acceptance she’d longed for. But now that she had it, she realized just how little it truly mattered. She shook her head and said, “But I need something more. I need to take this chance.”
“Didn’t you learn anything from Kevin?” Chip stood as he thundered the question. “There are consequences for crazy actions! If you throw yourself off a cliff, there’s no way you can survive!”
From the gasps around the table, she knew she should be reeling. She should be lost in the past, in mourning. Chip had pushed with all he had to give, with the mastery of years of manipulation.
But he had used the wrong lever. He didn’t understand the truth. “The most important thing I’ve ever learned is there are consequences for everything I choose. Every single action yields a result. But I’m not throwing myself off a cliff, Chip. I’m walking down a path, with someone by my side. Someone I trust. Someone I love.”
As soon as she said the words, she knew they were right. They were true in a way that all the calculations and analyses and manipulations of Image Masters could never be true. As if to agree with her, she felt Drew shift, coming to stand behind her in silent support. She reached down and twined her fingers with his, never doubting that his hand would be there, that he would be ready for what she needed most.
Chip shook his head. “What are you going to do when you get tired of walking on the beach? What will you do when you’re bored?”
She realized she’d learned the answer all those weeks before, in Florida. “I won’t be bored. I can set up my own business, doing marketing and promotion for people I want to work for. People who are doing great things, real things, like helping veterans, and starting restaurants, and building a photography business. People like the women I met in the stands, the players’ fiancées, who are working hard in Raleigh.”
“Raleigh!” From Chip’s snorted disbelief, she might have been talking about Mars. “First it’s Florida, now it’s North Carolina. What are you going to do? Follow the team on the road, rescuing people in every baseball stadium in North America?”
“I will, if Drew will have me.” She’d walk out of Image Masters then and there. She’d leave behind the conference room, with its million-dollar views. She’d never look back at Caden and Marnie and Rebecca. At Chip.
If Drew would have her.
“No,” Drew said. Her heart seized as she turned around to face him. “That’s not the question. That’s never been the question. You should ask if you’ll have me, knowing everything you know, having seen everything you’ve seen.”
He wasn’t talking about graphs and charts. He wasn’t talking about metrics. He was talking about scars on a well-muscled back. He was talking about dirty truths laid out in dozens of column inches. He was talking about past mistakes and desperate blunders and hard-won lessons learned.
He tightened his grip on her hand and said, “Jessica Barnes, I have no right to ask it, but will you marry me?”
They’d met each other in the middle of a media storm. They’d tumbled into a lie because of a friend’s poor judgment. They’d hurt each other. They’d saved each other.
They loved each other.
“Yes,” Jessica said. “I’ll marry you, Drew Marshall.”
The words were right, the instant she said them out loud. They’d been waiting to be shared, waiting to be shouted to the world. For the first time in weeks, she believed there could be a happy ending—Drew would do his rehab, he’d continue to rebuild his reputation because he hadn’t done anything wrong. The union would press for his making the team.
In ways she’d never planned, using strategies Image Masters had never considered, Drew would play shortstop for the Rockets. And she’d be there in the stands when he played his first game of the season—when he hit his first home run, when he turned his first double play. She’d be ready for the Backwards Run, if that’s what it took for them to be together, forever.
When he kissed her, she didn’t even consider counting the seconds. They didn’t matter any more. Not when she and Drew were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
BATTER UP!
Read on, for a sneak peek at the next Diamond Brides romance, From Left Field!
~~~
At least the dogs didn’t eat all of the barbecue.
Haley could have sworn she’d only turned her back for a second —she knew better than to leave a perfectly smoked pork shoulder sitting on the edge of the counter. All she’d done was reach for the vinegar-based sauce, just one stretch toward the stovetop, but the dogs had teamed up on her.
Killer, the toy-size mop of a mutt, had woven between her ankles, pressing against Haley’s shins to express her undying canine love. Heathcliff, the three-legged beagle, began baying like his heart was about to break. And Darcy, the brains of the operation, used his height to snag the meat from the counter.
The next thing Haley knew, the jet-black shepherd-lab mix was high-tailing it through the doggie door, dragging the haunch of pig down the porch steps and toward the back corner of the yard. Haley hollered for the dog to stop—a fat lot of good that did—and then she enlisted the aid of her guests.
Darcy was thrilled by the game, of course. Keep away, from an entire crowd. A couple of the guys got smart, circling around by the fence to the old Reeves farm, keeping Darcy from galloping farther afield. That left an opportunity for Haley to dive in and rescue the meat.
Not that it could be chopped into barbecue for humans at that point. Haley was really just protecting her hardwood floors. And the braided rugs that had been in the family farmhouse for at least three generations. And her bedspread, which would have received the worst of Darcy’s middle-of-the-night attentions if the miserable mutt hadn’t been deprived of his meal.
Haley marched the pork back to the trashcan, her back stiff with wounded pride. At least she had the second shoulder left to serve; it was still safe inside the smoker. And just that morning, she’d stocked up on links of fresh sage sausage, already serving their time on the massive grill. They sizzled on the far rack, close enough to the heat to keep warm, next to the chicken quarters that had marinated overnight and plumped up on the grill.
No, no one was going hungry. In a household that included three dogs, a grumpy cat, and a tank full of fish, disasters were the usual order of the day.
As usual for the traditional Opening Day Barbecue, Haley had cooked for an army. She could never guess how many people would show up for the Thurman tradition. Baseball was religion for her family—it was sacrilege to miss the Raleigh Rockets’ first game after the long drought of winter.
In an effort to avoid further culinary assaults, Haley sentenced all three dogs to detention in the laundry room. She sweetened their banishment with treats—peanut-butter-stuffed rubber toys that would keep them occupied for at least twenty-seven seconds.
“Need some help?” asked Michael, poking his head into the kitchen as Haley hefted her largest chef’s knife. Her brother was well-accustomed to the last-minute ballet of these Opening Day feasts.
“Thanks,” Haley said, quickly charging him with carrying out huge platters of food—coleslaw and fruit salad and thick pillowy buns for the barbecue. The macaroni and cheese was ready to come out of the oven, and the Brunswick stew was through simmering on the stovetop, so Michael drafted the third Thurman siblings, Billy. That left Haley’s sisters-in-law to keep an eye on the kids. The nieces and nephews were a handful—six girls and three boys, all between two months and twelve years.
Haley finished chopping the dog-safe pork, mixing it with the spicy barbecue sauce that made her sinuses smart. She tasted one of the crunchy bits and shook her head before adding another generous splash of sauce. Only after another another three tastes was she satisfied the dish was ready. She scooped the steaming meat into her largest serving bowl and handed it off to the waiting Billy.
As the excitement in the backyard reached fever pitch, Haley salvaged a beer from the fridge. She opened the back door and surveyed her domain, making sure she hadn’t forgotten any necessity for the feast.
She shouldn’t have. After thirty-two years of Opening Day Barbecues she should be an expert. In fact, her earliest memory of her family’s two-story colonial house was reaching up to the backyard picnic table to snatch a carrot stick from a vegetable platter and bringing down a rain of olives on her head.
That’s why she
’d abandoned vegetables as soon as she’d taken over the party planning, ten years ago. They were too healthy. And they could ruin a cookout for a little kid.
She was satisfied to watch the hordes descending on the picnic table. Michael was already halfway through preparing a plate for the twins, and Billy was corralling the girls. Along with family, a couple of dozen friends swarmed the table—neighbors and other tag-alongs who’d always been part of the Thurman family tradition.
Content, Haley drank deeply from her beer.
“Careful, now. Toss ’em back like that on an empty stomach, and you’ll be staggering by sunset.”
Of course, she recognized the voice before she turned around. Thirty-two years of being next-door neighbors did that to a person. “The man of the hour,” she said, grinning as Adam Sartain folded her into a bear-hug.
“Sorry I’m late,” the Rockets’ left-fielder said, brushing a kiss against her cheek. “The post-game press conference went on longer than I thought it would.”
She laughed as he let her go, and she turned toward the fridge. “You say that every year,” she said, automatically reaching toward the back of the shelf to grab his preferred Guinness.
“Every year, I think I can slip out early.”
“Sure, the team would be fine with that. The face of the franchise, ducking out of a little Q and A because he’s got barbecue waiting across town.”
“A man should have priorities,” Adam said, grinning easily. He accepted the beer and handed over a white pasteboard box in exchange.
“For me?” Haley asked, pretending surprise.
Adam chuckled. “Like I could forget. Happy spring training.”
She eyed the salt water taffy longingly. “I should eat dinner first.”
“I won’t tell on you,” Adam said.
And just like that, she slipped out a piece of cinnamon candy. With expert fingers, she tore off the waxed paper and slipped the pink stuff into her mouth, sucking hard on the spicy sweetness. The taffy was fresh—so soft that she moaned a little in pleasure.
